Occupied
by RoseWolf21
Summary: There is no one like Charlotte Holloway. Alone. Then there's The Doctor. He's different too, but in a whole new way. Sudenly, everything is changing. Suddenly things start to come up; secrets, shadows, things she neveer knew were there. Suddenly all that empty space that Charlotte grew up with, isn't so empty anymore. Suddenly she sees, the emptiness has always been...Occupied.


Occupied

By RoseWolf21

Enter, Scene 1 Exterior, empty street, nighttime. Camera zoom into the window of a bookstore to find the clerk reading a book behind the desk, Camera switches to her point of view as she reads.

(River Song Voiceover) "_When you run with the spirit of adventure, it feels like it will never end. But however hard you try, no matter how hard your struggle to keep going, you can't run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies, that everything ends. And nobody knows it quite like John Smith. But I do think that of all the people in the universe, John Smith knows this better than any of us; that you don't just give up. __You don't just let things happen. You make a stand! You say no! You have the guts to stand up and do what's right. Even if everyone else around you just runs away. And I do think that because of this, all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if my Dear John Smith ever, ever, even for one moment, accepts defeat."_

Charlotte closed the last page of the book she had been reading. Technically, she wasn't allowed to read on the job. But the store was empty now, it was almost evening. Everyone would be getting ready to close up shop in a couple of hours. She was lucky she had finished the book in time. If she had had to sit there for any longer she would have probably a) gotten in trouble, or b) gotten locked in the book store.

_ "Go on and let them lock me up."_ She thought, suddenly resentful. "_Books are better than most people anyway."_ She thought to herself.

She sighed to herself, and then stood. She put her book back where she had found it.

"Oh who am I kidding?" she murmured to herself. "I couldn't do that to myself, not to my family either. They need my paycheck." she said to herself.

She sighed again._ "Still can't wait to get out of here."_ She thought secretly to herself. And just then, just over her shoulder, something thick and dark flashed between the aisles of the shop.

Enter Scene 2, alley across the empty street from the bookstore. Camera zooms down the alley to the TARDIS. Enter the _12th Doctor_, poking his head out from the doors of his time machine.

After having a full look around the place, The Doctor snuck out of the alleyway he stood in. The odd blue police box stood by itself, waiting for him as always; this wasn't really the place he was thinking of, in fact, he had no idea where he was. The GPS on the TARDIS couldn't seem to give him a straight answer. He was getting tired of looking at the alley and literally jumped out from it and into plain sight. First thing he saw was a bookstore on the street corner. The lights were still on and there were still staff at the counters.

"What? What is that doing there? There aren't any bookshops in London anymore…If I'm even in London. I don't even know where I am. I haven't been to a bookstore in years!" The Doctor said to himself.

He glanced between the store and his TARDIS.

"I've always loved a little shop," he said grinning. Then he stopped. "Wait, no I didn't. I did once, but that was ages ago, I was so young and skinny back then. God I can't believe I remembered that at all, what is wrong with me?!" He asked himself without cause. Then, without thinking, he just ranacross the street to the corner and barged into the bookstore saying; "Is this shop still open? I have questions." The Doctor said bluntly, his wide eyes on the desk clerk.

Camera swtiches to _Charlotte_'s point of view

Charlotte looked up from her reception desk, suddenly surprised. She blinked. A tall, thin, and extremely old man had just barged in the store when it was almost closing time. _Why?_ Charlotte suddenly wondered. She shook her head a little to get herself back on track. It wasn't her place ask questions like that out loud anyway, and not in her thought either. She had a customer to take care of.

"Oh, no you're not late." she said, regaining her composure and her manners. "The shop is still occupied. But you don't really have very long. The store closes in about a half hour." she told the elderly customer.

The elderly sniffed. "Eh, good enough. What year is it? Where am I? And what time is it?" The Doctor asked in rapid succession.

Charlotte bit her lip, holding back a smile that would have been too big for the situation at hand. Honestly, she found this quirky old man to be kind of funny. Sure, it was a little weird for someone to burst into a shop not even an hour before closing just to ask what time it was. Not to mention he was asking what year, that was strange.  
>But oddly enough, that didn't bother Charlotte too much. She actually liked this old man, something about him was different from other people. She could tell by the way he was, and that almost never happened. (Some of Charlotte's friends would beg to differ, but that doesn't matter.) Despite her efforts, Charlotte couldn't help but smile just a little as she responded in her undeniable British accent.<p>

"No need to worry, it's not a bother." she told the senior customer. "You're in Cardiff, it's May 23rd 2010. And it's about 11:30 at night." she said. "That answer your questions?"

"I went back... Why did I go?" The Doctor, not so silently to himself. "_How…?" _

Without even bothering to say 'thank you' or 'goodbye', The Doctor left, starting toward the door, but before he could leave he turned around. "I never caught your name." he said to the clerk of the book shop. "What should I call you?" He asked curiously.

"Wait, why did you go wh-" Charlotte stopped midway in her question, she was supposed the say 'you're welcome,' but then he started to leave. She could feel the loss already. That was weird that has never happened before, at least not with a stranger. Then, the man stopped. He looked back over at her, and then asked her name. It all happened so fast Charlotte stammered a bit.

"Um…" she said.

"Well come on then." The old man festered. "I don't have all day. What's your name?" he asked.

"Charlotte." She stated to the old man, almost angrily. "Charlotte Holloway." she told the stranger. "My friends call me Charlotte…" She paused a moment, realizing she needed to know the stranger's name now that he knew hers. "Why? What's your name?" she asked the man.

The man paused for a moment to gaze at Charlie. "I'm the Doctor. But that's just a general thing." He said with a smile and joking tone. "Anyway, it was fine meeting you Charlotte. I'll probably never see you again but that's pretty normal." The Doctor exited slowly and quietly, even though he knew he had said too much. As the door to the little shop closed behind him he nearly clubbed himself in the head.

"Why can't I just keep my mouth shut?! Eh?!" He said loudly to himself. "Why can't I just walk in, ask my questions and leave without stimulating those ridiculous pudding brains out there, huh?" The Doctor let out an exasperated sigh at his own words. "It's the same old story, every time…"

Charlotte smiled. She had liked that man. He was old, but he was humorous, even with this blunt honesty. Charlotte couldn't help but grin. The only problem was, that he left. Charlotte watched The Doctor walk past the store display windows, he looked like he was either complaining or cursing himself._ "Something must be wrong." _ Charlotte thought to herself. She looked back at the rest of the store and all of the other employees she saw scattered across it. "_They'll be fine without me."_ She told herself. "_Just for tonight."_ She set down her book on her desk and raced out the door. She burst through the glass doors and called after The Doctor, a black streak following her along the carpet floor as she burst out into cold evening air.

"Wait!" she called. "Where are you going?" she asked rather loudly.

"Back to the present… Or at least that's what it's supposed to be called. Can never really make up my mind for sure." The Doctor called back, ignoring half of what he said as he walked off towards where he had left his TARDIS, not even bothering to look back. All he wanted was just to get back to his old Blue Box before something happened that would force him to stay and help out these outdated pudding-brains out there. (Charlotte follows him,)

Finally arriving at the spot wher his TARDIS was waiting in the alley, he opened the door, still not looking back. (Charlotte sneaks in after him later) He was very carefree at this time and just wanted to leave and go to the right year. Everything was fine, as always.

But the only thing he didn't know or, things, actually, were that 1) why the GPS wasn't working, 2) that he hadn't closed the door completely behind him, and 3) whether anyone was about to sneek in before he knew it. Letting a long sigh he leaned back onto the control panel for support. Every once in a while, being alone with his thoughts really drained him.

He had, in his absent minded oldness, left the door to his TARDIS halfway open, but he was too tired to notice.

Camera pulls out from indside of the TARDIS to the outside, where Charlotte was peeking around the corner of the alleyway.

As The Doctor had turned back to leaving, Charlotte felt the rain as it began to fall. "_Oh no, that's not good."_ She thought to herself. She didn't have a jacket, so she was quickly getting cold from the rain. She picked up her pace, trotting after The Doctor, still strangely curious about him. She reached the alley where he had turned off. She saw trash and mud and a...police box. It looked like the old fashioned kind of police box she used to see on the streets of England as a kid. And was a blue one, just as they had when she was born. "_That's odd. I haven't seen any of these on TV since I was a toddle."_ Charlotte thought to herself. The rain was getting worse, but Charlotte hardly seemed to notice.

She crept quietly closer to the box. The closer she got, the sooner she noticed there was a crack in the door. Unable to stop herself, she peered around to look through the crack in the door. The Doctor was in the box, leaning on a complex control panel. "_What?! How is that possible?!"_ Without thinking, she pushed the door open and let herself in.

"Doctor?" She asked, bewildered.

That was when she saw it. The Doctor's box, it wasn't really just a box. It was...bigger, so much bigger on the inside.

"What in the world?" She murmured. Before The Doctor could stand up and say anything, Charlotte ran back outside. From the outside, it was just a box, Charlotte checked all four sides.

It was just a box, no bigger and no smaller than any other police box that Charlotte had ever seen.

"_How is that possible?!" S_he thought aloud with wonder. She blew back into The Doctor's box five minutes later. "Your box," she said. "It's bigger on the inside. How is that possible?" She asked.

"Time lord technology, that's how." The Doctor said, standing aside from the controls. "It's possible because my people made it. It's the TARDIS, it's my ship and one of the foremost rules here is that there are now _pudding-brains_ allowed!"

Charlotte didn't even seem to hear most of what he had said. Instead she just gazed around the room in wonder. "Technology?" Charlotte asked disbelieving wonder. "Really?" She asked, looking around. "No way..." She murmured. "_Feels too…alive."_ At that moment, she suddenly processed the other part of what the Doctor had said. "Time what?!"

Suddenly the door slammed shut behind her and Charlotte jumped with fright.

"What the heck was that!?" She asked, "Because that definitely wasn't me." She said, trying not to show much the door had scared her.

The box shuddered a little under her feet. Charlotte looked over at the Doctor, suddenly nervous.

"Doctor?" Charlotte asked nervously. "What's happening right now?"


End file.
